The history of British watercolour from the mid-eighteenth century to the end of thenineteenth century was intimately bound up with the evolution of man's response to the naturalworld. Neither drawing nor painting, the medium ofwatercolour presented the perfect vehicleby which so rich and varied a theme could be explored.

 The history of British watercolour from the mid-eighteenth century to the end of thenineteenth century was intimately bound up with the evolution of man's response to the naturalworld. Neither drawing nor painting, the medium ofwatercolour presented the perfect vehicleby which so rich and varied a theme could be explored. Beyond its initial uses either to recordthe external world objectively or to expound more theoretical approaches to Nature, water-colour became the medium for the literal depiction of landscape, both in Britain and elsewhere,the transcription of the minutiae of the natural world, the analysis of natural phenomena, andthe vehicle for the expression of man's emotional and intellectual response to the grandeur ofNature. This rich diversity of purpose demanded technical developments that allowed themedium to move away from precise outline and monochromatic washes to the heightened col-our, varied brushwork and ambitious subject-matter that produced works which vied with oilpaintings for supremacy on the walls of the Royal Academy of Arts. It engaged such majorfigures in the history of British art as John Robert Cozens, Thomas Girtin, John Sell Cotman,David Cox, James McNeill Whistler and J. M. W. Turner.

Foreword

Authors' Acknowledgements

Introduction

Ambition and Ambivuity: Watercolour in Britain

The Structure of Landscape: Eighteenth-century Theory

Man in the Landscape: The Art of Topography

Naturalism

Picturesque, Antipicturesque :

The Composition of Romantic Landscape

Light and Atmosphere

The Exhibition Watercolour

Glossary of Technical Terms

Catalogue of Works

Artists' Biographies

Chronology

Select Bibliography

Photographic Acknowledgements

Index